Adelaide’s focused efforts to attract the Indian outbound market are bearing fruit this year, a strategy set in motion following Dreamtime 2023, where a fam for Indian event planners in Adelaide was held immediately after the event.
This commitment continued last November, when another group of Indian event planners visited Adelaide for a post-fam trip, following their participation at Australia Next 2024 in Cairns. This sustained engagement has now led to tangible results.
“Indian travellers have been going to Sydney, Gold Coast, and Melbourne for 30 years, and they are looking for a new destination. Adelaide is that opportunity for them. For this coming December, we’ve secured two corporate incentive groups of around 150 to 200 participants,” Damien Kitto, CEO at Business Events Adelaide, told TTGmice.
He added that Business Events Adelaide is receiving enquiries merely eight weeks out from event planners based in India, indicating that the market “moves fast”.
“The more small- to medium-sized groups we can attract over the next 12 months and successfully deliver, the more we’ll build our volume and attract larger groups in the future,” Kitto shared.
Typically, an Indian corporate group will have a minimum one day conference, before heading out to experience Adelaide’s attractions – such as the cricket culture at Adelaide Oval and Monarto Safari Park – over the next three to four days.
Aside from being a safe Australian city, a strong Indian culture already flows through the city. For example, when it comes to cuisine, Indian agents are usually surprised by the “exceptional quality of Indian cuisine Adelaide has to offer”, thanks to the 50,000 Indian immigrants currently working and studying in the city, noted Sarah Goldfinch, general manager of Adelaide Convention Centre (ACC). The ACC too, has several Indian chefs on its F&B team, supported by a predominantly Indian event team.
One of the reasons why the Indian market is of interest is also because the country is home to a large number of medical associations.
Kitto stated: “We’re starting to engage with Indian PCOs connected with medical associations, educate them on our infrastructure, in particular the ACC. But a key aspect to that is Adelaide BioMed City, the largest health and medical research precinct in the Southern Hemisphere, that can be utilised for site visits.”
He hopes that in the next three years, efforts to court the Indian market will materialise into larger incentive groups, as well as large medical conferences.
